BRAZIL

Drug companies and
laboratories in the country
will no longer be able to
enjoy the freedom to pirate
patente@ products. The government has finally adopted
a new patent law that brings
foods and pharmaceuticals
under the cover of intellectual property rights. The law
will expectedly bury the
widespread practice of
Brazilian laboratories copy
patenting drugs and selling
them freely in Brazil, which
is the world's sixth largest
market for pharmaceuticals.
It will encourage foreign
investment and develop a
domestic drug industry. But
the law has its critics, who
say that it will only help the
multinational companies to
corner most of the commercially useful research, while
the local companies would
suffer due to lack of capacity.
The law will also end Brazil's
strained relations with the us
over patent rights. "We see it
as a model for the rest of
Latin -America and the
world," said a member of the
Pharmaceutical Research
Manufacturers of America.